


Eye of the Storm

by leitnerpiper69



Series: The Archive [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives
Genre: Bad Ending, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Power Dynamics, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24563932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leitnerpiper69/pseuds/leitnerpiper69
Summary: Elias himself is an anchor - that's the reason Jon followed his call.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: The Archive [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700605
Comments: 4
Kudos: 86





	Eye of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this immediately upon hearing the S5 trailer and am just now posting it, so spoilers up to there.

It's the same sensation that good statements used to give him, the fullness followed by guilt, but over and over in constant waves. It bleeds into him, bleeds into itself, one chronicle of fear becoming another.

Elias is sitting in an armchair (Jon knows the color, threadcount, the origin of the wood, knows that Elias with an amount of self-aware amusement thinks of it as his throne) stroking Jon's hair. The sensation doesn't override the information that crashes over Jon in waves but it's an anchor, a physical thing that keeps him from bleeding out into the ocean of terror that surrounds them.

Elias himself is an anchor - that's the reason Jon followed his call, why he still calls him Elias, allows himself this one deception - because confronting the enormity of what Elias really is, what both of them are complicit in, would crack his too-full skull open. That's why he clings to his pant leg like he's drowning and allows those long fingers to card through his hair.

Another wave begins to pass through him, and he shudders.

"It's okay, Jon."

The words barely register to him. New terror rolls through him, darkly satisfying, and he shakes harder.

"Jon. Jon, look at me."

Elias gently pulls Jon's face out of his lap and tilts his chin up to face him, and for a second, Jon is back. 

Even as Elias's eyes hold him in place, even as he leans into the hand, Jon wants to slap him. Even Elias's mind is completely open to him now, and he can feel the satisfaction rolling off of him, thick and cloying.

Elias, to his credit, holds a concerned expression well, even if his mouth twitches upward slightly when he sees Jon's dazed expression. Jon does his best to Look away while focusing on the details of Elias's face.

"Good," Elias murmurs, and it barely even rankles Jon to know that he's been lodged firmly in his head the whole time. "Focus on the details, Jon. Focus on the facts. Don't let the emotions pull you away. Breathe into it."

It sounds like a sick parody of the affirmations he'd give to Daisy, and it makes his gut coil inward. He's flooded with images of her last moments before being taken by that awful anger, the way her face contorted and warped, how she tried so hard to hide from Basira in shame before-

Jon clenches Elias's shirt, tugs, while Elias continues stroking his hair, that concerned, pleasant, wicked expression on his face. Knows by now that he doesn't get anything he doesn't ask for.

"I…" Jon stammers, makes a few breathless noises as he tries to sort through the crashing sensations enough to form words. "I… I want, take it away again, Elias, I want, I want you to make me feel blank, again, please."

There's no compulsion in his statement and yet Jon Sees the way Elias's body shifts then, the quickening of his pulse, the heat that flares in his stomach, the way his knuckles go white as he squeezes a fistful of Jon's hair.

"I… I know you say you want me to see it myself, but, you… I know you don't really, I know you never have, I know you want to be the one I rely on, " He doesn't keep the bitterness out of his voice, a bitterness towards the both of them. He wonders if he'll ever be able to stop talking in painful truths now, and if this is how every victim of his ever felt when he pulled their secrets out of them. "So just do it, just do it again, please, don't make me keep asking-"

In a single movement Elias pushes Jon out of the chair into the wall. Jon feels the way his features sharpen, the way he becomes clearer and now terrible against him.

" _ Archive,"  _ he whispers in his ear, and Jon shudders, moans, tries to pretend that he's only reacting to the way Elias's desire radiates into him, that he's only being led by the tide, wonders how low he's sunk that having this little agency is preferable to the alternative. "My beautiful, perfect Archive. You really are my weakness, you know that?"

And finally, mercifully, he feels his connection with Elias, the lead that's been tied around his throat since he first signed that paper a world ago, wrap around his mind again and again in a vice grip. He feels himself shrink, feels the ocean of his sorrow and fear being pulled away from him as his mind closes up. 

The knowledge is still there, but it's a part of him now. It is him. He is nothing.

Jonah Magnus gently lets go of the Archive and allows it to sink to its knees.


End file.
